


collection of sanji oneshots where the most that happens to sanji is humiliation

by MalkyTop



Series: he is beauty he is grace that's a lie please save this man from himself [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, also the literal ships these guys sail on, it's all lighthearted fun and games i'm serious, no ships here but friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 18:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10882494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalkyTop/pseuds/MalkyTop
Summary: literally all fluff. the only one who dies is sanji's pride.inside this fic, sanji loses to: skates, luffy-as-laboon, birds, the heterosexual agenda, franky, The Talk, luffy's handwriting, the concept of fun





	1. Skates

"Saaaanji-kuuun, I have a liiitle favor to ask..."

"No."

"You didn't even listen to me!"

It was one of those rare days that Sanji found himself lounging around outside with nothing to do. Lunch was over and dinner was in the middle of defrosting. Luffy had gotten the idea that he wasn't about to get any pre-dinner snacks faster than usual. The girls were sitting content with the drinks he had lovingly prepared. The scent of the sea mingled tantalizingly with the taste of his smoke and there were no stormy clouds on the horizon.

So he was damned if he was going to waste this brief, perfect moment on whatever the shit Usopp was trying to rope him into.

"I'm begging you," said the aforementioned rope-er, managing to wriggle his way between Sanji and the railing. Sanji tried to keep his sight firm on the deep blue of the ocean. "You're the  _only_  one who can do this!"

Shit. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop seeing Usopp's damn desperate eyes in the corner of his vision. Sanji backed away and tried to lean on another fine piece of railing but Usopp scuttled continuously into view, each time with another piteous detail added to his face. Pouting lips. Quivering nose. Brimming tears. The works.

Sanji's sigh sounded like it was tumbling off a cliff of bad decisions. "...What do you want."

"You're a lifesaver! I  _really_  need someone to test this – "

"Goodbye."

"Wait! No! Come back! It'll be fun, I  _swear!_ " The unfortunate thing about someone who was really good at running away was that they were also really good at cutting in front. Usopp was, simultaneously, an inescapable escape artist. It was the most aggravating thing about him and as much as Sanji put up all efforts to shoot him down, he knew in the back of his mind that he would end up doing whatever idiot thing Usopp asked.

This particular idiot thing came in the form of wheeled boots. Usopp raised them up like a proud flag and let them clank noisily against each other. There were several heavy-looking clasps wound around, snapped tight, and attached to the backs were some sort of exhaust.

"Behold! The Usopp Rollers!"

"You put wheels on boots."

"These aren't  _just_  wheels on boots, moron! These are the latest in quick-escape technology!" Usopp sent the wheels rolling with a swipe of his hand, as though that would make the wheel-boots any more impressive. "It increases speed; agility; and yet it decreases the effort needed to achieve it. Not even a cheetah would be able to catch up! With these babies, you'll leave pesky pursuers in the dust (as long as you're on moderately smooth ground)!"

"Oh, so you invented something to help you run away."

"First of all,  _rude._  Second of all, yes. In any case, after the...incident with the Usopp AaaAAaaaaAAaaa – " (Sanji cringed as Usopp went through the entire yell at full volume) " – I realized the need for proper testing before use on the field. Plus, I need multiple tests, just in case I miss something. So that's where you come in."

Damn. That actually made a lot of sense. Sanji forced smoke out of his nose with a disgruntled sigh, looking like a particularly temperamental boiler.

"Why me? Can't you just go bother Luffy with this shit? Someone who actually  _likes_  doing this stuff?"

"I wanna  _test_  them, not  _break_  them," Usopp shot back, and they both shared a wry laugh over the human disaster known as their captain. "And you've got small feet, like me.  _And,_  you're already graceful on your feet, so think about how cool you'll look on these! You'll glide like an eagle!"

" _Fly_  like an eagle," Sanji said, rubbing out his cigarette on the heel of his shoe and tucking it behind his ear. Usopp scrunched his nose at that (an experience that could only be described as 'watching a miraculous combination of an elephant trunk and an accordion'), but said nothing further as Sanji took the Usopp Rollers from his arms. They were heavier than they looked, probably on account of the wheels and whatever the hell else was added, and Sanji plopped himself down to put them on.

"Uh, no. It's  _glide_  like an eagle. As in, you'll  _glide_  on these wheels like an eagle  _glides_  in the sky."

There were so many straps, all of them clipped tightly enough that they wouldn't come undone on their own. It was a weird feeling, like being much too snug in a bed except it was a bed for his feet. Sanji pulled them tight. "I'm  _pretty_  sure that people say eagles  _fly._ Nobody admires them for their  _gliding_ ability, moron."

"Sanji, Sanji, Sanji. You're naive to the ways of the land – "

"I wasn't  _born_  on the sea, y'know – "

" – so I understand your confusion on all things land-based – "

"Eagles are mostly in the  _sky – "_

" – but fear not, because Great Captain Usopp is a patient teacher, and he will be happy to impart unto you his worldly knowledge."

Sanji clamped the last strap tight and briefly hoped that it wouldn't cut off blood flow. "How about one thing at a time, huh?" he said casually, pushing himself up on his feet, which immediately rolled out from under him and left him slightly dazed on his back.

There was a moment of silence while the two let the past second catch up with them. And then Usopp clamped both hands over his mouth.

"Don't you  _dare,_ " Sanji breathed from the floor.

"I'm not! I didn't say anything!" The sniper very noticeably moved back several steps, still covering his mouth. Once in a while, he'd let a few words escape in quick peeps. "Though I  _kinda_ expected – that, uh – you'd be, um –  _better..._ "

"How about you  _shut the hell –_  " Midway to standing up again, Sanji's foot slid out behind him and he had to settle for kneeling instead. Bracing a hand against the wooden floor, he shakily tested his weight on one of the skates. "How the  _shit_ are you supposed to stop the shitty rolling? Isn't there a way to  _brake_?"

Usopp blinked. Slowly took out a notepad from his pocket. "B-r-a-k-e-s," he sounded out carefully as he wrote the word down.

If Sanji hadn't already thought to tuck his cigarette away, it would be falling out of his mouth.

"Are. You  _kidding_  me. How.  _How._ " Usopp was looking a little more guilty now, opting to hide behind his notepad this time. "You built this and tested it, and you didn't think about  _brakes?_ "

The long nose pointed to the left, suddenly more interested in the direction they were sailing. "Ahahaha, well, I mean, I haven't, tested them  _myself?_ Yet."

Sanji wondered if there was a word for when a mouth is already gaping but trying to gape harder. It was something that he thought was very relevant right now, as he fumbled his way to the side of the ship and tried to pull himself up with the support of the railing. " _I'M_ THE FIRST TEST SUBJECT?! _You're_ the one who  _built_ it and  _I'M – "_

Sanji's rant was interrupted by his own incomprehensible angry noises and a very valiant effort to move forward with wheels for feet. He actually made very good progress by pushing himself off from the side of the ship, causing Usopp to shriek and run away. Ultimately, Sanji's downfall was turning, as well as actually trying to kick. As one of his legs swung up, the other leg had the equal and opposite reaction of swinging back and he ended up in an unintentional split. It was as impressive as it was painful.

Usopp ceased his flight as Sanji rolled on the floor and tried to kick off the Usopp Rollers fruitlessly before giving up and lying on his back like a frustrated seal.

"Usopp. Get these shitty things off me."

"Are you gonna kick me?"

"No, I'm  _not_ gonna kick you, just get your stupid-ass shit off my feet."

"I think you're lying about the kicking me part."

Sanji tried tearing at the straps with his spindly fingers, failed to do anything, and then made a guttural beastly sound in the back of his throat that he perfected through years of smoking. "Usopp, I  _swear to god,_  if you don't take these shitty things back  _right now_  I am gonna kick your ass  _so hard_  you'll only see it once a year, orbiting the world like a  _shitty comet._ "

"See, when you say things like that, it  _really_  doesn't convince me that you're not gonna kick me."

"You pile of putrid shit  _don't make me come over there._ "

Usopp continued standing a few, unreachable paces away. Sanji continued lying on the floor.

The Merry could have probably been set aflame with the intensity of his internal screaming.

"So, uh. I'll...be right back...with Z...orrr...Llluuuuu...Nnnnaaaaaa...? Someone. Who will protect me so you won't kill me as soon as I – "

" _No,_ " Sanji said, his voice too horrified to even be threatening. With wobbly legs, he started to stand, carefully jittering his way up to a stable upright position. He set his feet apart as though he was expecting to sumo wrestle, his arms tense even though they weren't very necessary for anything. His whole body quivered with the effort of keeping completely still. He could feel the ocean roll beneath, chuckling darkly at his precarious position. But he was, currently, upright.

Usopp stared at him. He stared back. He had to admit that he didn't think about what to do after this.

"What's all this noise?" said the last person he wanted to hear at this moment. Zoro rounded the corner with a face that couldn't be fixed even with a good wash. Not that he could see it right now, but that was a given fact at all times. "Stupid cook shouts too much..."

There was another moment of silence, during which Sanji imagined Zoro was spending looking like a dumbass. And then:

"...Do you really need to take a shit?"

"NO YOU ABSO – " The lapse in attention caused the Usopp Rollers to slip out of his control and Sanji was left spinning his legs wildly in place until he managed to somehow keep them under him. His face started to scrunch up, red with the pounding blood pumping in his head.

Another pause. Sanji heard Zoro's thuggish boots plod their way behind him, and then in front. The swordsman, hand to his chin, looked him up and down. And then his face split into the most terrible grin Sanji had ever seen. "Oh.  _I_ see..."

"Zoro, look...Sanji's already going to kill me... _please_  don't make it worse...for my sake..."

"Everybody! Check this out!"

As the call invoked a flurry of activity around the ship and stampeding footfalls, Zoro leaned back and crossed his arm like a smug piece of shit. Usopp lowered his pleading hands and moaned, "Of course. Of course. Don't listen to Usopp. It's not  _your_  life on the line." Sanji continued screaming in his mind, only louder.

The first to arrive was heralded by the  _slap slap_  of cheap sandals and an almost instinctive, "Sanji!  _Meat!_ " It took only a few seconds for Luffy to realize that there might be something else almost as interesting as food going on, and he slid into Sanji's view with a barely-contained laugh. "Wow, Sanji! You sure look stupid!"

"Nothing new," Zoro added.

"What's going on?! Is it a monster? Or – uh. What's...going on?"

"Zoro, I  _told_  you, only call me when –  _pffffft_ oh my  _god_."

"My my, is this what Mr. Long Nose and Mr. Cook get up to by themselves?"

Every sound of amusement stabbed deeper and deeper into Sanji's heart, his building resentment only able to express itself with his flaming glare and his shaking fists – because as much as he would  _really_  like to kick  _several_  faces in, like  _hell_  he was going to fall on his ass in front of the ladies.

"What're these things on his feet? Looks fun!"

"Those are the, uh, Usopp Rollers," said Usopp from the far side of the deck. He cringed when Sanji's eyes flicked towards him. "I'm, um, in the middle of, we're testing them, so, it's a  _secret_  test by the way, very dangerous, you guys probably shouldn't – "

"Oh, it's one of your secret weapons? So cool!"

"They just look like skates."

"Ex- _cuse_ me, they aren't  _just_  skates!"

"All I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure I asked you to work on my Clima-Tact instead."

"I'm – I'm getting to it, don't rush me..."

"So what's this in the back?"

Zoro had circled Sanji once again and was in a position that Sanji absolutely didn't want him to be in. As much as seeing his goddamn piss-face was terrible and the worst,  _not_  seeing it was almost infuriating in how nerve-wracking it was. He couldn't even kick, damn that Usopp, and so all he could do was continue standing in an utterly ridiculous pose while his reputation took a dive into a volcano and melted into magma.

"Uh, that – that's...I...for extra speed, you see – Breath Dials, I mean. In the back? For extra speed."

"Oh?" said Zoro's voice, now much lower to the floor than before, and Sanji's whole body tensed with how extremely  _not good_  this was, holy shit. "So...you just press... _these_  buttons?"

There was a click and a slight lurch as Sanji suddenly found himself being propelled by bursts of wind. Which, apparently, had all the power of a hairdryer, and about all the speed of growing hair. Usopp leapt out of the way of his path, straight into a hysterical Luffy and a chuckling Zoro and Robin said, "It isn't nice to tease him so," in that sort of, of... _motherly_  way that was too embarrassing to even consider and this was absolutely the  _last straw._

" _You shit-eating shithead green asshole I'm gonna –_  "

With a frantic clatter of wheels rolling against wood and another few curses for good measure, Sanji bumped into the far railing, tipped over, and fell into the ocean with a  _splash._

The rest of the crew leaned over to watch the bubbling (broiling?) water.

"Sh-shouldn't we...help him?"

"The cook's an idiot, but he knows how to  _swim,_ " Zoro replied, still holding in another round of laughter.

"Guys...maybe...do you think you can hide me before he comes up again...I seriously think he's gonna kill me this time..."

"Well, that's what happens when you don't work on the things you promise to do."

"I  _said_  I'll get to it! You're not even  _paying_ me so don't even start!"

"Gosh, you sure are getting mouthy without Sanji-kun around. I wonder what he'd think if I told him what you said?"

"He's not coming up," said Robin.

Everybody peered over the railing again. The bubbles were coming up less frequently.

"H-he's drowning! Isn't he drowning?!"

"He fought a goddamn fishman  _underwater,_  he can't be drowning," Zoro shot back with a furrowed brow.

"Perhaps he decided to drown himself out of shame."

"He  _can't_  do that! I didn't give him permission!"

" _Why would you even say that?!_ "

"Th-there's no way he'd do... _that_ , I mean...that's just..."

The bubbles started to trail behind the ship and, entranced, the crew followed along, walking to the rear deck.

It was with a horrified mumble that Usopp said, "...The Usopp Roller's  _are_  pretty heavy...and I didn't build them with swimming in mind..."

It took a moment for those words to properly worm their way in to everybody's minds. Slowly, simultaneously, everybody's faces dropped.

"AAAAAAH! HE'S DROWNING! HE'S REALLY DROWNING!"

"SANJI STOP DROWNING! WHO'S GONNA COOK DINNER?!"

_Splash splash_

"Goddammit, those two  _idiots,_  Nami, Usopp, help me out here!"

"Robin, furl the sails, try to stop the ship! We can't let it drift too far away from them!"

"How was I supposed know he couldn't skate!?"

_Splash splash splash_


	2. The Reverse Mountain Play: Act One

"Okay, that's the worst of it! We can relax now!"

The Thousand Sunny practically shuddered with the force of everybody's sighs. Sanji slumped where he stood, hanging over the yard of the mast like laundry out to dry (which, face it, he might as well be considering the volume of water currently sogging up his clothes). He briefly weighed the advantages of simply letting himself slip off and fall back to the deck rather than take the effort to climb down. In the end, he decided that he could do without broken bones for once.

On the other side of the mast, Chopper seemed to be making the same consideration, his tongue lolling in the humidity and his eyes taking on the look of a professional with a  _really bad idea_  but still having the urge to go through with it.

Sanji tilted his head so that his cheek rested on the slick wood and asked his arm to grab a cigarette. It pawed pathetically at the side of the yard before drooping back down. What a piece of shit. "That was terrible," he said. Or at least, tried to say. Through the wet hair clinging to his face, it sounded something more like "Blergh."

"Mmgh," Chopper agreed.

"Goddamn crazy-ass shit ocean." Sanji tried going for some cigs again and successfully dragged a hand into his pocket. It came out with a white, soggy clump. With a sigh, he simply let the ex-cigarettes drop to the deck below. "I'll never get used to Grand Line storms. God. What a  _hellhole._ "

Chopper didn't answer this sentiment as readily. Sanji almost thought he had simply passed out from exhaustion (a tempting idea), until he crawled up closer to the mast and tried to peer around to Sanji's side. "So...things aren't like this in other oceans...?"

There was something in those words that made the question more than it was. Something that couldn't be answered with a simple 'yes.' Something that made Sanji think about being the fifth member to join, about having to learn everybody's name  _after_  fighting side-by-side against a group of bloodthirsty fishmen, about fitting in and yet standing back, watching everybody, keeping track of the dynamic, wondering, wondering, wondering, what's his story, her story, his story, his story? What had come before? When will he stop feeling like (not that Luffy never made anybody feel anything less than welcome, turned everybody he touched into someone who had always been around) a Johnny Come-Lately?

And he was only the fifth member. He at least was still around Before Grand Line. The sense of a crew-wide History only grew the more they experienced together, and it was something that could always be felt, in the way that they laughed together, talked together, joked together, and (unintentionally, blamelessly) made some of their 'they' feel like an 'other.'

Sanji changed his position without really moving, turning his drape into more of a lounge. "Considering I've been in two seas before this one, I think I can say for sure that no, things aren't like this in other oceans. For one thing, rain doesn't suddenly turn into sleet and back to rain, and ships normally don't get hit by a waterspout and a thunderstorm and a hurricane all at the same time. Also, usually the weather is courteous enough to give you a fair bit of warning instead of up and shitting on your parade every millisecond."

"Wow,  _really?_ " said Chopper, and Sanji couldn't help but give a wry sort of smile at how he reacted the same way he would to one of Usopp's stories.

"Oh, get this: you don't have to be constantly aware of your heading. You could just point your ship in the direction you wanna go and not worry about getting turned around!"

" _That sounds super convenient!"_

"You can just sail to any island you want! The other oceans are all mapped out and compasses work by measuring fixed cardinal directions instead of pointing to specific islands that you might not even want to go to!"

"No way!" Chopper's eyes sparkled, his mind trying to imagine such a perfectly free place like that. At some point he had pulled himself up into a sitting position, kicking his hooves idly over the yard. "I'd like to see that someday. All of the Blues. You think I could?"

"Actually, I'm not sure how anybody's supposed to leave the Grand Line. But since I'm figuring on visiting my old man in the future, I'm sure we could figure something out when we get back to Reverse Mountain."

"Reverse Mountain?"

Sanji leaned against his elbow, his legs crossing at the ankles. His trousers were still damp and they itched like  _hell,_  but hey, the sun was out and there was no better place to just sit and dry. "Entrance to the Grand Line. If you wanna get in, you gotta go through – wait, sorry, you gotta sail  _up_ it. It was a crazy introduction to this crazy sea, and frankly, it's been the least crazy thing I've seen so far."

Beside him, just on the other side of the mast, he could see Chopper slow his kicks and stare off into the distance, eyes focused on the horizon of said crazy sea. "So everybody's been over that mountain, huh?"

The ship was starting to come alive again. He could hear Franky making his rounds, checking the status of the hull and reorganizing any disheveled shelves he came across. Luffy had found some energy spared from the storm and was currently using it to cheerfully snap his wet vest against Usopp's back for laughs, until the two of them formed a truce and started creeping up to a snoozing Zoro. Robin was removing all the tarps that had been hastily tied down over the garden, shaking off the excess water and rolling them up in storage, while Brook sat with his legs over the side, playing for the undrowned plants. That is, until he noticed the little secret mission going on and started an impromptu soundtrack for that instead. Nami was keeping quiet, a smile on her face, though she was sure to start off about how loud and annoying the guys were in a second or two.

"Hey. Let's go down."

"Huh?" said Chopper, but Sanji was already halfway down the mast and just dropping the rest of the way down.

As soon as his shoes squelched on the grass, he set off to the men's room, shrugging off his drenched jacket along the way. Franky caught sight of him and strode up, waving a wet and disgusting clump around in his hand. "Hey, bro! This is  _your_  junk, isn't it?! Don't just throw your crap – "

"Tell Chopper to wait down here for a sec."

" – how hard it is to grow – huh? Why – "

Sanji went inside, leaving Franky stuttering at the door, and swiftly peeled off all his clothes and kicked them into a corner. With some difficulty, he dug out his swimming trunks from its obscure hiding spot (when was the last time he went swimming? – And no, fishing for his idiot crew mates didn't count), dove in them, and burst back out again.

"Usopp! You got a hose or something, right?"

It took a moment for the sharpshooter to answer, as he was distracted by a sword-wielding maniac. But once Zoro was kind enough to stop bashing him on his head with the hilt of his sword, Usopp squinted up at Sanji and said, "Eh?"

"It's probably with your other shit," Sanji said, already heading down to the bowels of Franky and Usopp's special experimental space. The sight of Sanji, only wearing trunks, sauntering down into his workspace, was enough for Usopp to shake off whatever concussion he had.

"Hey, hey, hey! I've got a  _system,_ y'know! You can't just move stuff around – " His complaints were briefly cut off as the two of them disappeared below deck, only to start up again when Sanji reappeared with a long coil of rubber hose. " – might need that for something, my stuff aren't things on  _loan_ – "

The two disappeared into the kitchen. At this point, everybody in earshot simply stood around, waiting for the punchline of whatever Sanji was planning. Chopper arrived on (relatively) solid ground, having not been so daring as to drop any number of meters from the ladder. Sanji reappeared again, sans Usopp, unrolling the hose as he went until he arrived at the top of the slide and simply let it drop there.

"Turn it on!" he called back, and Usopp made some inaudible grumbles as he, supposedly, turned it on. After a moment, water started spurting from the hose in bursts until it seemed to make a decision and cascaded down the slide. Franky watched with a grimace. Water spilling on wood wasn't really a good thing. Though technically, it was spilling on grass. Which was probably not a good thing either, maybe, since plants could drown, right? And also there was wood under the grass. On the other hand, Sanji looked pleased with his vandalism and, catching sight of Chopper, made a grand gesture with his arms. "Reverse Mountain!"

The expected punchline was even more bizarre than anybody imagined. Zoro finally stopped squeezing Luffy's head between his fists. "The hell're you even  _doing._ "

"Go back to sleep, meathead." Zoro shrugged as if to say, 'fair enough,' and settled down by the mast once more. Luffy, released from his fist-based prison, said, "Sanjiiii aren't you gonna cook dinnerrrrr," but he was easily ignored.

"Alright Chopper," Sanji said, going back down the stairs, "we're gonna enter the Grand Line. Best damn sea in the world."

Chopper stared up at Sanji, looked around at the ship and the ocean it was in, and looked back up again.

Scratching the back of his foot with his toes and generally looking like he was desperate to keep going before he got too embarrassed to continue, Sanji said, "Just get on my back, idiot." This was, at least, comprehensible, and Chopper was always up for a piggy-back ride. With a little boost, the reindeer was sitting on Sanji's shoulders, his hooves resting on top of scraggly blond hair.

Standing tall, Sanji leaned on one foot and then the other. Closed his eyes to give himself a moment to remind himself that he was totally cool and suave and all that jazz and nothing would ever change that ever. And shouted, "Look at that, captain! It's the Red Line!"

Before Chopper could even make an inquiring noise, Sanji started a brisk run towards the stairs he just went down. "All the water's going up the mountain, somehow! Like...some sort of current going up the canal or something!"

"The currents of all four Blues are pushing the water up the canals, colliding and falling back down into the Grand Line," Nami called from near her orchard. "But you gotta be careful not to crash right into the Red Line, or the currents will drag us all down!"

"H-huh?! What?! That sounds scary!" Chopper yelped, shaking from the speed of Sanji's pace.

"Don't worry, captain, we're going straight up!" And dammit, he added a 'whoosh' noise as he pounded up the stairs. Which could hardly be called a 'mountain,' but the short trek managed to have some fraction of intensity, probably helped along by the rousing song Brook was stringing together from above. And once he was back on the second floor, Sanji took Chopper into his arms and flung him up into the air. "The ship's reached the top!" he shouted as Chopper squealed in surprised elation. And though it was slightly inaccurate, Sanji decided to throw him up a few more times for good measure.

Once Chopper was back on his shoulders and working out some spare giggles, Sanji jogged over to the slide. "Now we just go straight down the mountain and into the Grand Line, captain! Hang on!" Without pausing for a second, Sanji leaned forward, dove down the slide headfirst, glided down the water like a dream, and rammed his face straight into Luffy's inflated belly.

He bounced off (because what else could he do), slammed into the side of the slide, rolled up and over, and sank into the wet grass. Chopper slipped from his shoulders and rolled a little further, laughing all the way. Luffy made an impressively loud, deep, guttural sound, which seemed to have been inspired by the sounds of his own stomach.

Sanji lifted his face off the ground, intensely aware of just how many grass clippings were now sticking to his wet body. He opened his mouth and let some mud dribble out with as much ire as he could put into dribbling. "Luffy.  _Why_  did you stand in front of the slide."

"I'm Balloon the Laboon! BAAAOOOOOHHHH!"

"You probably mean Laboon the Balloon," Usopp said, hanging over the railing in front of the kitchen door.

"Oh my! You encountered Laboon by  _crashing_  into him?"

"Well, it was less of a crash and more of a...firing a cannon straight into him to avoid a crash."

"You  _what._ "

"H-hang on! He was so big he didn't even notice!"

"What exactly are we talking about?" Robin said, also sitting over the side of the garden now that the tarps were all squirreled away. Usopp blinked up at her.

"Uh. The whale that's been parked in front of Reverse Mountain for the last fifty years?"

"Haha, what?" Franky joined in, flicking up sunglasses up. "Wasn't one when  _I_  got in. My folks just sailed us down and we went straight to the first island."

"Perhaps we both happened to miss it?" Robin suggested.

Usopp looked both Franky and Robin square in the eyes and sagged into his hands. "Are you  _kidding_  me."

"BAAAAOOOOOOHHHHH!" Luffy called.

"Stop that! What kinda noise is that supposed to  _be?!"_

"It's Laboon! It's what Laboon sounds like, remember?"

"No,  _no._  He sounded more like...BUUUUOOOOOOAAHHHHHH."

"Ex- _cuse_  me, I was at the very front of the ship, so I  _know_  what he sounded like and he sounded like...BWOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH."

"Wow, Nami. You sounded really gross."

"Shishishi! She sounds exactly like a whale!"

"...Alright you two, shut it."

"How about  _all_  of you shut it! Can't even sleep with this stupid noise you're making!"

"Zoro, Zoro, try sounding like Laboon! We're doing it for Chopper!"

"How about I punch you in the eye instead."

"Oh yeah! I  _did_  do that, didn't I!"

"Hahaha, yeah! You totally did do that incredibly stupid thing that  _got us eaten by a huge terrifying whale._ "

"You got  _eaten?!_ "

"Oh yeah! Man, how're we gonna act  _that_  out? Maybe all of you get in my mouth?"

" _NO._ "

Sanji slowly got to his feet, holding his arms out and trying to shake off the mud and grass he had suddenly found himself adorned with. He was going to need to take a bath. And then he was going to have to change clothes and  _then_  he was going to have to make dinner. As he walked around to the back, away from the excitable chatter and impromptu stories, he listed in his head: slice the defrosted meat, marinate, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, cooking wine, ginger, peel the turnips, slice into chunks, stir fry...

 


	3. What's For Dinner?

The Grand Line couldn't be described as anything other than awe-inspiring. The greatest sea in the world. The last unconquered ocean. The unmapped unknown. It was alluring despite its danger, or maybe because of it, and many adventurers had set sail for the promise of new lands and hidden treasures. Sanji could wax poetic about this ocean for probably three whole days (but only because he was already a romantic idiot who had the stamina for that sort of thing).

But sometimes the Grand Line was extremely inconvenient.

“It appears uninhabited,” Robin commented as everybody took in the sight of a sparse, rocky savannah, broken up only by scraggly shrubs and the fat silhouettes of oddly-shaped trees. The heat pounded down on all of them like an enthusiastic drummer, dousing the optimism of even the most optimistic among them. It was hard to want to do anything besides lay around and find a way to get cool.

And there was nothing at all that looked like a market.

“Goddamn shithole,” he breathed out, squinting under the sun, as though if he looked hard enough a food stall would shimmer into existence. No such luck. “Well, there's gotta be something edible around here.”

“You _sure_ we can't just...wait until the next island? I mean, some of this stuff looks...” Nami gestured towards one of the nearby trees, which looked somewhat like an umbrella if the umbrella had made some poor dietary choices and gorged on candy for all of its life. “...weird.”

“Worry not, Nami-san! Any exotic flora that I harvest will all be tested _extensively_ for safe consumption! Hey, Chopper, get up. It's foraging time.”

Chopper remained face-down on the deck. Sanji nudged him lightly with his foot, and he rolled with remarkable ease. Once his mouth was free, he panted out, “Do I haaaave to.”

“You know a bunch of shit about plants, you can smell things I can't, and you can ask animals what shit's dangerous to eat. Yes.”

Chopper responded with a pained gurgle, which Sanji paid no heed as he slung him over his shoulder. “Usopp, you're coming too.”

“At least _ask_ if I want to, asshole! Which I _don't!_ _Maybe_ I want to go swimming? It's _really hot._ ”

“Sure, okay, if you say so. Maybe I'll just come back with a week's worth of mushrooms.”

Usopp opened his mouth with an affronted expression and then clacked it shut before he released any of his fuming in any verbal form. “ _Fine._ ”

“Glad to have you on board,” Sanji trilled, tossing a large basket his way. Usopp fumbled with it for a while before it finally settled in his arms.

“I'm the _pack mule?!_ ”

“It's a very important job.”

“You could just carry this yourself!”

Spinning neatly on his heel, Sanji turned innocently pleading eyes towards Usopp's direction. “But then who would carry Chopper? C'mon. Wook at this widdle kewtie.”

Sanji's saccharine tone juxtaposed with Chopper's half-conscious expression wasn't at all convincing. It was, judging by Usopp's (lack of) reaction, mostly weird. For his part, Chopper weakly raised a hoof and mumbled, “Do your best...”

Usopp flitted his head around in search of another victim, but Nami had already claimed everybody else's attention to claim victims of her own for a surveying trip. He drooped and sighed and resigned himself to his fate.

* * *

“I still can't be _lieve_ you're wearing all that,” Usopp repeated for the twentieth time today. It was one of several phrases he currently had on rotation. The other phrases were: “It's hooooooooot,” “Oh my god it's _so hoooot,”_ “I'm gonna die I'm gonna die from too much hot, _”_ and “If you set me on fire _right now_ I wouldn't even know the difference it's that hot.” It didn't make for very insightful conversation, but Chopper, in comparison, said absolutely nothing besides plant names, “Safe,” and “Poisonous.” So Sanji would have to take whatever conversation he could get.

“I took off my jacket and tie,” Sanji replied for the twentieth time today, and it was true. It was much too hot for layers and suave fashion.

“You're wearing _long sleeves.”_

Sanji paused, as if seriously considering the temperature as he buried his hands into a potentially fruit-bearing bush. “Yeah, it's pretty warm.”

“Oh my _god._ ”

“I guess I don't retain a lot of heat, y'know?”

“I hate you. You're terrible.”

“Yeah, okay. Something more important: this shitty island is all rocks and weird plants and I have _no_ goddamn idea what to eat here.”

Usopp paused, remembering what conversations about things other than the oppressing heat were like. “Um. But you already put stuff in the basket.”

“It's all _aloe.”_ Sanji sighed, took out a cigarette, and glared at a nearby tree that looked like if an albino pickle got ambitious. “No _wonder_ this weird-ass island's unpopulated, the only shit we can eat here are _leaves_ and _flowers._ ”

“But then what do the birds eat?”

Very slowly, Sanji turned towards Usopp. Then he turned to where he was pointing. Perched atop the ambitious pickle, tucked in the saddest excuses for branches he had ever seen, was a flock of birds.

And now that he was aware of them, he actually heard their bird song, their dithering chirps and whistles, sounds formerly shunted to the background in his search of edible flora. The birds were, surprisingly, normal-looking birds. They didn't look like, say, if a rose was made of all thorns and decided to wreck a rock's day. This was promising.

Sanji, without moving his eyes away from the flock, started blindly slapping at Chopper resting on his shoulder. “Hey. Hey, wake up.”

“Mnnguh.”

“Ask those birds what's good to eat.”

With herculean effort, Chopper raised his head and blinked blearily at the pickle-tree. Whether he could actually see the birds or not was up to debate, but even so, he said, “'Sssscuse me, bir....ds....wha's good eats...?”

The chatter of birds stopped for a moment, driving home just how desolate and alien the landscape looked, before starting up again, a descending scale of discordant tweets.

Chopper squinted again. Let his head fall back down. “....Says...dun wanna tell...cuz don' wanna no stinky humans grubbing alla their foods...”

“ _What._ ”

“Aaalllllright, Sanji, nothing we can do here, let's just try somewhere else – “

“You PIECE OF SHITS I WILL LITERALLY ROAST YOUR FEATHERY ASS – “

“Sanji, you're picking a fight with a _flock of birds._ ”

“SHOOT THEM DOWN, USOPP I FIGURED OUT WHAT WE'RE GONNA EAT.”

“Seriously, _calm down,_ you're not thinking strai – oh. Wait. That's actually not a bad idea. Here, hold this for a sec.”

“Noooooooo.... _nooooooooo..._ it's _ruuuuude..._ ”

“H-hey, Chopper, stop! I can't aim if you – “

“ _The assholes are getting away!”_

“ _YOU KICKED DOWN THE TREE OF COURSE THEY'RE FLYING AWAY.”_

In between Chopper hanging off Usopp's arm with all the weight of a heavily tired person and Sanji being unable to do anything besides throw his shoes at the cackling birds and cuss about it, the three pirates managed to catch a load of nothing. And lose a pair of shoes.

Dinner for the next few days consisted of aloe salad.


	4. Dating Advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the #32daysofsanji event. Prompt: Treasure/Passion

“Sure.”

That one word reverberated through his entire body, echoing again and again until it drowned out the sound of the sea, the rocking of the boat, even the view of anything outside this small circle of this historical event happening right here in this one moment. That one word broke through his carefully designed shell, making him lose all sense of composure, and if it weren't for a branch of especially helpful arms, the tray of drinks he was holding would have crashed to the floor in a chaotic array of glass and tastefully mixed juices.

“E-ex...cuse me...?” he managed to tremble out.

Nami straightened out her newspaper with a flick and turned the page. “I said, sure. Let's go on a date.”

Once again, Sanji almost fell to his knees, this time being more aware of his current fragile cargo. There had never been a precedent for this sort of situation once in his life. He could feel his brain sparking, warning him of the danger of this vast, uncharted territory he had suddenly breached, and he shook with the anticipation of what he had to do next.

He ran away.

* * *

“Usopp! _We need to talk._ ”

Usopp looked up at a breathless Sanji, down at his worktable piled high with various bits and parts, and looked back up again. “...Now?”

“ _Now._ ” With a sweep of his arm, Sanji cleared some space of metal clutter for his tray of drinks. He also set down a bottle of alcohol that he didn't even remember picking up, but it was for sure going to be useful. “ _Listen._ Listen,” he said, his voice dark enough to convey the full scope of the news he was trying to convey. He chugged down one of his own drinks and started to fill the glass with the cheap booze. “ _Nami agreed to go on a date with me._ ”

“Oh. Congratulations.”

“ _No!_ It's terrible! I'm _totally_ unprepared! _You've gotta help me!_ ”

For his part, Usopp endured Sanji shaking his shoulders. It was something he had to get used to. “You really didn't fantasize about this sort of thing like, all the time? I thought you'd have some big, flamboyant plan for when this happened.”

“Well, _yeah,”_ Sanji said, sounding a little offended that the existence of his various predictable fantasies were ever in any doubt, “but it's not like I can get a white stallion out of nowhere. And I don't know if any orange flowers are in season on the next island, not to mention how the _hell_ am I gonna book a ballroom – will there even _be_ a ballroom? Also, do you even know how _long_ it takes to bake a multi-tiered cake with all the trimmings and decorations and shit?”

Usopp tried very hard not to use his 'I Can't Freaking Believe That You're an Actual Human Being' look and failed miserably. “Are we talking about a date or a _wedding_ here?”

“You talkin' romance over there? Y'know, I'm a _super –_ “

“Shut the hell up, goddamn shitty robot,” Sanji hissed towards Franky's corner of the workshop. “This is a _private conversation._ ”

“ _You're_ the one who walked into _my workshop!_ ”

“Let it go, Franky. Sanji, don't be a jerk.” As the two grumbled vaguely about each other, Usopp took two glasses off the forgotten tray and handed one of them back to Franky as a peace offering before turning his attentions back to the matter at hand. “Alright. Why don't we just bounce date ideas off each other and then you choose what you like the most?”

“It _absolutely_ can't be on the ship.” Sanji took a shot just for imagining all the shit that could happen with a date that had _Luffy_ in the vicinity. Usopp nodded sympathetically.

“Okay, so you're gonna do it at the next island.”

“But I don't know what the _season_ is and the typical weather, I don't even know _what's there_ and – “

“Look, Sanji, you might be thinking about this too hard.”

“What if, as soon as we land, I run off and scope out the _entire town_ and review every single establishment there – “

“Can you please _try_ to think like a rational person?”

Sanji, for once, obliged and scrunched his face up in thought, twirling his glass around. A rational person. Right. Going on a date. Dating rationally. Like people do.

“So what if I get together enough money to buy off everybody in the town and – “

“ _Try harder.”_

Sanji took another shot and slumped backwards on the floor with the most pathetic whine he could manage.

“Okay. Here's a classic. You could go take her to a restaurant and buy her dinner.”

Sanji shot back upright once more. “I _could._ Just, like, a quiet candlelit dinner.” As Sanji fell into a contemplative silence, Usopp took this as a sign that his job was over and huddled over his own project once more.

“But. Do you think. Isn't it a little... _tacky,_ for like, a cook to take someone out to eat some _other_ shithead's food?”

Usopp sighed and set down his screwdriver. “It's a date. _Not._ A job interview.”

“But. Usopp. I'll be sitting right outside a kitchen. There's going to be a bunch of incompetent idiots in there shitting up our food. They could ruin our date with terrible culinary skills.”

“Yeah yeah, we all know you're the best.”

“Do you think they'll let me cook our dinner instead?”

“Sanji, does it _really_ sound like a good idea to just leave Nami at the table while you obsess over the food that you're going to eat.”

“What am I talking about? I'm a _pirate._ I can just _steal_ the kitchen.”

“ _Sanji please listen to yourself.”_

“Dude, just _hang out_ with her. That's what a date _is._ ”

“As if I'd listen to advice from some triple-chinned geezer.”

“ _I'm not even forty!_ ”

“Alas, the tragedy of old age; as time passes, so does passion. You simply don't understand the fire of young love, _old man._ ”

“... _I_ don't understand young love and I'm younger than _you._ ”

Franky gave a final, confrontational snort out of his nose before turning away. “If you're _really_ not gonna listen to my _quality_ advice, then 's your loss, buddy.”

“Actually, if the next island has an aquarium, then maybe you could go there,” Usopp butted in. “I think you'd really like it and maybe actually calm down a little. And aquariums are cool, so Nami would enjoy herself too.”

Sanji nodded, another shot halfway to his mouth. “So you're saying I should steal an _aquarium._ ”

“ _NO._ ”

* * *

 

“So. What made you agree to a date?”

Nami reclined back in her chair, folding up the day's news on the table. “Honestly, I thought it would be funny.”

“His reaction so far _has_ been amusing,” Robin remarked, tapping her ear knowingly.

“I know, right?” Nami replied with a grin, revealing the Black Den Den Mushi she had on her wrist.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sanji and Nami ended up going to an aquarium, where Sanji stared and cooed over fish the whole time. Nami started wondering whether he was infatuated with the 'girl' part of mermaids or the 'fish' part.


	5. What Even Are Magnets?

“ _Aha!_ You've fallen _right_ into my trap!”

This was not a phrase new to Sanji, but he had never heard it right after kicking someone's teeth out. He squinted at the man in front of him, who was still laughing, head thrown back and all. Sanji had to admire a guy who could do that despite the blood that was definitely pooling in his respiratory system.

“As soon as you came into contact with me, your fate was sealed! Soon you will realize – “ Sanji kicked him again. He wasn't even sure why he was kicking this asshole (Pirate? Bounty hunter? Just because?) but it was probably best to just knock him out and move on.

“S-Sanji, that doesn't sound good, m-maybe we should, leave?”

He didn't even deign Usopp with an answer. Whoever this guy was, he was definitely being annoying and like hell he would just kick someone and just leave them. Either finish the job or don't start at all, that was his philosophy. “So you gonna stop talking or what?” He nudged the guy's body with a foot. The poor sap responded with a mumble that sounded like a continuation of his previous threat. Sanji kicked him again, getting his body to skip twice across the cobbled street.

“G-great job, Sanji! Getting some distance like I said! Now time for phase two of the plan!”

“If your plan is 'run away,' then forget – “ Turning around, Sanji found the very unwelcome sight of hundreds of caltrops flying right towards his face, and he only managed to save his eyes being gouged out by catching them with his arm instead. They hooked into his clothes and pressed against his skin like unprofessional acupuncture and he had to stop breathing for a moment, afraid that any move he made would somehow sink the damn things further into him.

He threw his arm down and shot a blazing glare back at Usopp. “ _What the hell!_ Where the _shit_ do you think you're aiming, you pepper-licking asshole son of a _shit!_ ” He was only somewhat mollified by the apologetically terrified look on Usopp's face. Somewhat.

“I, I wasn't aiming at you! I swear! I was aiming for that guy, but, but somehow, in the air, all of them just, kinda, _changed directions_ and, and went towards you!”

Sanji frowned. That sounded completely ridiculous and totally fake, but Usopp had never had an incident of friendly fire before. And now that he was focused back on the damn caltrops, he couldn't help but notice that, honestly, they _shouldn't_ be sticking to him. Trying to brush them off just got them stuck to other parts of his body. Another annoying laugh from the resident kicking bag made him turn around again.

The man, still bleeding on the ground, managed to turn his face and look up at him. “There it is, the dawning realization of your doom...for you see...I have turned you into a living magnet! That is my power, and now you will bear witness to – “

Sanji landed a foot solidly on top of his head. With some of the caltrops sticking to his shoes, he imagined it made the attack more painful.

As he stood there, smoking over the _finally_ silent body, Usopp plodded up beside him, hands clamped on his bag like he was afraid it would go flying off. “Um. So. I should probably take all of those off.”

Sanji exhaled a stream of smoke. “I would very much like that, yes.”

“Oh hey! _There_ you bros are! We've been lookin' all over, _jeez,_ what's keepin' you – “

“Wait, hang on, _Franky, don't –_ “

* * *

“...So that's what happened.”

The rest of the crew turned their head from Usopp to stare at the current unusual spectacle and said, “Ah.” Sanji tried not to blush, but he had been doing so for the past fifteen minutes. As he had been doing so all the way back to the ship, he braced his feet against Franky's legs and tried to pry himself off to little success.

“ _Let me go,_ ” he snarled, managing to peel one of his arms away enough to bang it fruitlessly back on one of Franky's frustratingly metal pectorals. “Of all the damn people in the world who could be made of metal, _why did it have to be you?!_ ”

“So yeah, the guy's unconscious but this whole thing didn't wear off or anything so we don't know how long it'll last,” Franky added, plucking Sanji off with one hand and grabbing some cola out of his stomach with another before placing the cook back like a giant fridge magnet. “It's _probably_ not permanent.”

“ _Probably?_ ” Nami echoed with a frown. At some point, Luffy had got up and disappeared inside somewhere. The only thing more important than laughing at his crew mate's misfortune would be food. Sanji's struggles got more violent. “But he's messing up the Log Pose.” And it spoke to just how spitting furious Sanji was that he didn't immediately say something like how now Nami had an Eternal Pose ~~to his heart~~

“So Curly just sticks to you anywhere, huh?” Zoro said, standing a few feet further away than anybody else. His swords started rattling in their sheathes if he got any closer. “What about your dick?”

It probably wasn't humanly possible for blood to boil this much. After a moment, Sanji managed to grit out, “I'll cut off _your_ dick for asking, you goddamn grass troll.”

“Yeah, he can,” Franky said, and Sanji's blood pressure got that much higher. He started kicking again.

“Al _right._ If you guys are done talking about your _genitals_ , what are we gonna do about dinner?”

“Dinner! Right, I haven't started!” Straining against Franky's legs once more, he jumped, landed on the deck for one second, and was flung backwards into Franky's body once more, cursing and hissing like a teapot.

“If I may, if you were to attempt to cook as you are now, you will most likely find yourself skewered by your own knives.”

Sanji's blood curdled, which was at least better than the constant bubbling that was happening before. Nami's more placating tones warmed it up a little. “What Robin means is...you should probably take a bit of a vacation, Sanji-kun. Until this whole thing...works itself out.”

“Vacation?” Sanji repeated, going limp with a whimper. Luffy burst back out of the dining room and skidded in front of Franky with a load of spoons in his grubby hands. The load of spoons quite quickly found their way onto Sanji's face.

“Hey, it ain't so bad!” Franky gave him a light knuckle sandwich, his fist coming away with Sanji's hair clinging desperately to it. “Think about it – we could have a little... _bonding time_ together!”

“Oi, oi, don't be stupid, Franky. He's already... _attracted_ to you enough!”

Gradually, the spoons started to vibrate and clank together in an awful din that continued even as Luffy tried to see if Chopper's metal band on his antler was enough to stick him to Sanji's chest. Brook, standing as far away as Zoro was, started laughing up a storm.

“'B-b-bonding time...!' 'Attracted!' _Yohohoho,_ how brilliant!”

“I suppose this is fitting. He always had a magnetic personality, in that he tends to stick with a person he likes for a long time.”

“ _Please_ don't encourage them,” Nami groaned out at Robin while Franky, Usopp and Brook whooped and whistled and clapped their hands. Luffy had moved on from harassing Chopper to simply snapping Sanji's tie clip on and off, on and off, grinning widely whenever he let it go and it snapped back into place with a _thwap._ “Don't you guys have anything _better_ to do? Someone needs to start cooking at least.”

“Eh, I guess I can do that,” Usopp replied, raising a hand and moving towards the kitchen already. Sanji's eyes followed him with unsatisfied rage and a hint of jealousy.

“Guess I'm babysitting this bro right here,” Franky bellowed with a laugh before giving Sanji another one of those goddamn noogies and his godddamn hair was never going to be the same again he was sure of it. “C'mon, I'll show you something _super_ I'm working on – “

“Franky, if we aren't letting Sanji-kun into a room full of kitchen knives, do you _really_ think it's a good idea to take him into a room filled with whatever junk you keep in your workshop? _Metal_ junk?”

Franky paused in his steps, turned to look blankly at Nami, and then peeled Sanji off and held him out. “I don't wanna babysit him anymore.”

“Ooh! Ooh! _Me me me! I'll do it!”_ Luffy shouted, dropping his armful of what suspiciously looked like scrap metal from the workshop below to wave his arms madly about.

“I'm out,” Zoro said with a lackadaisical wave. “Don't want the idiot stealing my swords.”

“ _I DON'T WANT THEM._ ”

“It is the same with me, I'm afraid. And violins _do_ have some metal on them. I will have to compose a song about this from afar, alas.”

“ _I DON'T WANT A SONG EITHER.”_

“Well what about,” Franky started, swinging Sanji over towards the ladies, but stopping his suggestion in its tracks when he saw their expressions. He swung Sanji back. “Wh-what about...Chopper!”

Chopper was standing beside Luffy, holding a large sheet of metal rather guiltily.

“Well, that's that. No kitchen,” said Nami, pointing at the spoon-covered cook before moving on to his handler, “and no workshop. Make sure Luffy doesn't go overboard. Have fun.”

“Why did it have to be _magnets,_ ” Franky sighed out after a few hours, staring longingly towards his workshop once more.

Sanji couldn't think of a time when he had ever shared a sentiment harder. He muttered something indistinct from within his thick armor of whatever as Luffy pried him off, sat him in the swing, and then laughed so hard he fell over when it went completely horizontal towards Franky like an unerring compass.

 


	6. The F-Bomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may not be how canon Sanji is at all, but it is my ideal Sanji.
> 
> I had been hoping to go through without any harsh cursing, and then I had an idea that was all about cursing...so now there's a lot of cursing. Hang in there. It will be an educational experience for everybody.

It was one of those days where Sanji found a few more people than usual watching him cook. Despite the sunny skies, Usopp, Nami, and Chopper had decided to stay in, and he appreciated that they would throw their day away just to keep him company as he worked hours and hours over one edible thing or another. As much as he found joy in cooking, it was a time-consuming affair that often left him no breaks – and little time to make happy memories with his friends, save watching them eat the fruits of his labor. Despite that (or perhaps, because), there was no shortage of visitors in the kitchen, chatting, working, joking, sometimes drawing him in, beckoning with a question or asking for confirmation, or just simply existing where he could see them, allowing him the bare minimum of involvement – a gesture of courtesy he treasured dearly.

Sanji showed his gratitude by letting them witness the longest stream of vulgar cursing and general bad-mouthery known to any sentient being, all of it aimed towards Luffy, who was here too. Because of course he was.

Such a constant torrent of the coarsest language ever invented by the bitter minds of sailors, garnished with Sanji's particular flair, could only be experienced in awed silence as the onslaught never seemed to cease, and perhaps it was impossible to stop, maybe their cook's mouth would forever run with the tongue of only the filthiest garbage – but then Sanji finally succeeded in tying Luffy to a chair and it was as though the shit-pour halted in midair and the ass-clouds parted to once again reveal the sun-of-cheery-disposition (for a given definition of 'cheery').

The silence continued as the three witnesses struggled to pick themselves back up, survivors in the wake of a verbal hurricane. It was only after Sanji briefly enjoyed a celebratory cigarette that Usopp cleared his throat like a chimney, leaned back, and said, “ _Geez_ , sometimes you curse so much, I'm starting to wonder if you even know what those words _mean.”_

“Hm?” said Sanji as he dragged Luffy and his chair to the Time Out Corner. Everybody waited patiently for him to stuff all of Luffy's fingers into various finger traps he prepared for the 'Keep the Black Hole Busy' plan and you better just _sit_ there in that shitty chair, goddamn shitty piece of rubber fuck.

“See? That's what I'm talking about! Nobody's a piece of fuck, fucks don't come in _pieces._ ”

“The hell're you screwing about?” Sanji shot back with his most casual scowl, going back behind the kitchen counter for the raw meat Luffy had so recently tried to pilfer.

Usopp jumped out of his seat and pointed. “There! You did it again! You can't just use 'screwing' with _any_ preposition you feel like, there's a _specific set_ that's socially agreed upon to be contextually appropriate to use 'screwing' with!”

Usopp's lecture was accompanied with a lot of gestures that ostensibly had some meaning – to the one making them, at least. It certainly showed his passion for the correct usage of colloquial language. But in the end, all he got was a blank stare. Usopp looked helplessly back and then turned to the others sitting at the table. “C'mon guys, back me up here!”

Nami, with a wide-eyed expression that kept curving too much around the mouth to be taken at face-value, said, “Gosh, I don't know what you're talking about!”

“I'm...not sure I'm old enough to say anything...”

“Looks like my vocabulary's _fine,_ thank you very much.”

Finding himself in the clear minority, Usopp wilted out of habit. But there was no shaking his sheer certainty because, like, _c'mon,_ he was _totally_ right! “Yeah, yeah, alright Nami, you had your laugh, now can you be serious and stop your stupid faking so you – “

Sanji interrupted him with a grunt, wielding a very heavy-looking rolling pin. “Oi, if you're gonna talk to Nami-san like that, then you better fuck out.”

Usopp closed his mouth Opened it again. Worked his lips until he could figure out a proper response. “Now I _know_ you're messing with me,” he managed, just as Nami almost fell out of her chair laughing. Chopper, in the middle of getting his nose stuck in a cup of sweetened soy milk, met Sanji's eyes and shrugged with all the helplessness that came with child-like ignorance. Sanji wasn't sure if he wanted to bond with Chopper through this sort of sympathy.

“The hell's wrong with what I'm saying,” he said, though it came out more defensive than intended. He started hiding his face behind the steam of the soup when Nami had stared, as if waiting for him to give a punchline, and then burst out laughing even _harder._

“He's…! I think he's...oh my _god,_ he's serious!” she wheezed out before giving up any image of composure entirely, slamming her head down on the table as she worked out her giggle fit by pounding her fists on its wooden surface.

Usopp didn't look amused at all, or perhaps he had predicted (correctly) that, unlike Nami, he would be subject to all sorts of pain if he laughed. He did look befuddled, however, raising a hand to his forehead and almost recoiling from the shock. “Who even taught you to curse?!”

“Who taught _you_ to curse,” Sanji shot back from behind his curtain of steam. He wasn't quite ready to come out yet, and sure, steam could burn, but this was fine. He was fine.

“Okay, _granted,_ it's not like anybody _teaches_ you, but you kinda pick it up on your own, right? Like, I learned pretty quick that 'shit' was poop (no Luffy, nothing interesting here, go back to your corner), 'ass' was butt, 'fuck' means sex, and – “

“Means what?”

“Sex. And 'damn' means – “ Usopp grounded to a halt, his impromptu lesson dying in his mouth. At least Nami had stopped laughing, though it looked like she had only paused to listen in on this new development. Sanji didn't meet Usopp's eyes and instead pretended to lean his chin casually in his hand and looked away.

“Sanji. Are you saying. You didn't know what fuck means?”

“I _do!”_

A pause.

“No,” he said a little quieter. “But I was _asking – “_ Abruptly, he cut himself off by biting his own fist. Nami started to shake with pent-up mirth.

“What? What were you asking? What else could you _possibly_ ask when you asked oh my god.” Usopp clamped his hands over his mouth too late to keep in his outburst of realization and he reeled, his feet pacing backwards as he tried to wrap his head around just what he was contemplating. “No way...but yes... _no._ Oh my god. Oh my _god._ Um. Sanji. This is gonna be a weird question. Don't even know why I'm asking, really, I mean, the answer's obvious (or I _thought_ it was), so, like, well, do...you know...uh...has anybody ever... _talked..._ ”

“ _Do you know what sex is,_ ” Nami belted out before another laugh forced itself. It was loud, way too loud, and even Luffy paused in his struggling to turn and figure out what the fuss was about.

Sanji, gaze firmly fixated on his ashtray, didn't answer.

This time, Nami did fall out of her chair, hooting on the floor without regard to volume or lung capacity, and the longer it went on the more Sanji started to flush until he could probably squeeze the color out of his face and use it as a replacement for tomato soup. It got even worse when Chopper swiveled in his seat, stood on it to get a better view, and said, “You _don't?_ ” with such an adult incredulity that Sanji almost felt like sinking into the floor and never getting up again.

He tried to channel his embarrassment into thuggish aggression, a trick that had always worked in the past, but Nami was still laughing even as she breathed out how much her stomach _hurt_ oh my god, and he ended up stuttering, “I, I, it's not _important,_ is it? I never even fucking _heard_ about it!”

Usopp's legs almost fell out beneath him, but he managed to get a seat underneath him first before that happened and he melted into it in a glazed stupor, cradling his head. “He never even _heard_ the word. Nobody ever...oh my god. Oh. My _god._ I don't. How. My entire worldview has come crashing down. What else was I wrong about? Does gravity even _exist?_ ”

At this point, Nami had finally found the strength to pull herself back up and onto her knees. She peered over the table, her face still bursting with unexpected glee, and said, “All that time, when, when you were, _flirting_ with me, what were you even, I mean, what did you hope would _happen_ if it wasn't _sex?_ ”

“I,” Sanji said, and now his face was probably going infrared, invisible to the human eye, and like _hell_ he was just going to blurt out his fantasies for everybody to hear, but it was _Nami_ who asked and so his mouth babbled on like a freight train over the edge of the world. “Just. It was. Like. Kissing. Holding. Hands? And, hugging and stuff. Get...married...kids...”

That set off Nami again and she disappeared, shrieking to the ceiling, “ _I can't believe it, Sanji-kun was so innocent all along, oh my god,_ ” and all Sanji could do was numbly stir at the soup, staring at the wall above where he knew Nami lay, contemplating how his life had gone to shambles, what a shame, it had been such a good life so far, too bad that he was dead now, forever. Goodbye.

“Kids. You were thinking about _kids._ ” Usopp's flat voice rose him from the grave for a moment. “Sanji...didn't you even...um... _think_ , about. Where babies. Uh. _Come_ from.”

“Oh yeah! That's when people touch their things together and then someone poops out a baby!”

As one, everybody turned towards the Time Out Corner, where Luffy had taken a break from trying to free his fingers to join in on the conversation.

Very slowly, Usopp succumbed to his fate and collapsed like a very slow rock slide onto the table. “Luffy knows about sex. And Sanji doesn't. I don't. What. _What._ How does this world exist. Who am I.”

“People touch _what?_ Someone _whats_ a baby?!” He could be reasonably said to be slightly panicking. The entire situation felt like it was very quickly slipping out from under his feet and there was nothing to land on. He kept stirring. “Look, I just repeated what all the other shitheads in the kitchen were saying! Nobody told me anything about what any of it meant!”

“You're saying that you lived on a ship, _surrounded_ by men, and _none_ of them even talked to you about sex?” Nami said, making some sort of effort to sober up. She was failing, quite terribly, but it was a good effort.

“He never had the Talk. _He never had the Talk._ Even _I_ had the Talk, and I didn't even have _parents._ ” Usopp was now slowly rocking in his chair, mumbling into his hands.

“Look, if it's that important to know, then _you_ tell me!”

Silence descended immediately. Usopp looked at Nami. Nami looked at Usopp. They looked back at Sanji, both of them suddenly looking a fraction as awkward as he felt, their expressions the epitome of 'I never planned on having this conversation with anybody, least of all a nineteen-year-old _man_ ,' before they simultaneously affixed a light smile on their faces and said, “Well, you should ask someone older...”

“C'mon Sanji, didn't you listen? I already said what it was!”

“ _That wasn't helpful at all!_ ”

And then, the absolute cherry on top of this whole uncomfortable shitfest, Chopper raised a hoof and said, “If you really want to know...then I can explain everything.”

Without really waiting for an answer, Chopper started talking. And talking. There were drawn figures involved. And diagrams. And very informative gestures. Sanji turned off the stove. Sat down. There was even a lesson involving mouths and hands. Every time Sanji thought his face couldn't twist even further into a disbelief as deep as a black hole, Chopper would add another detail about, about… _something_ and then Sanji would invent a new expression that perfectly encapsulated all the world's horror into one face. He was starting to ache with all the effort of maintaining his reactions, but he couldn't stop because Chopper wouldn't stop, and Usopp and Nami were staring at him, and Luffy was trying to sneak into the kitchen by hopping the chair towards it but he fell over and _Chopper was still talking._

“That's,” he said, after a million years, when thankfully every bit of information was spent about everything he never knew about life and more. “This. You're not...shitting me.”

The doctor shook his head, but it wasn't like he needed to. As if the little guy could even lie.

Sanji took in a deep breath. Set his mental files in order and squirreled them away in a dark, dark place. “That's... _unsanitary.”_

“That's procreation,” Chopper dutifully corrected, and both teacher and student ignored the way that some of their spectators slowly caved in on themselves and shook helplessly.

“People do this _willingly?!_ ”

“All the time. By all accounts, it's enjoyable,” Chopper said with a patience of a saint. “I could go further into the hormones involved, or – “

“But, it, I _piss_ with, that, in _there,_ ” Sanji's hands tried to reach for something in the air, like the proper words from his brain hole, but nothing appeared. “ _Urine,_ ” he finished weakly.

Nami briefly came up for air. “ _I can't believe this is real life_ _,_ ” she wheezed before diving back down into painful joy.

Sanji sat. Continued to sit.

Somewhere underneath the current of horror he felt was a different, muted horror about the absolute fact that nobody on board this ship would ever let him live this down.

 


	7. Luffy's Recipe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr ask meme prompt: 
> 
> "I wish you would write a fic based on this real situation I was in 'I wrote that recipe down for you' 'I saw, also, I've never seen your handwriting before.' 'Really?' 'Its horrific.' 'I'm dyslexic' 'yeah but like, it looks like a secret code.'"

Sanji looked down at the grubby sheet of paper. Looked up at Luffy’s eager face. Back down.

“I can’t read this.”

“Huh? Really?” Luffy snatched the paper back, squinted at it, turned it over. “I think it’s upside-down.”

“You _think._ ”

“Sanji, you _gotta_ cook it, it was so good, and the guy told me the recipe and I wrote it down so I could give it to you so you could cook it and you _gotta!_ ”

“Yeah, I wanna eat it too!” Usopp chimed in.

“Me too, me too,” Chopper said as well, and the childish triad was complete.

Sanji sighed. Ran a hand down his face. Turned the paper at all angles. “Luffy, I never thought I’d say this, but there’s something worse than your art. It’s your handwriting.”

“Nuh-uh,” Luffy shot back, stretching over to peer at the paper again, but all he could do was frown. “I can’t read this.”

Usopp took it and sucked his breath in, as if he had seen a corpse. “Uh. Luffy…is there any chance that maybe you… _remember_ anything about the recipe…?”

“It was round! And chewy, and warm and, and, there was something in it and it was delicious!”

Chopper took the paper from Usopp and squinted at it. “Umm…I think I can figure this out,” he said, like he was a master decoder or something. “I used to read Dr. Hiruluk’s writing, and it’s kinda like this.”

It took an hour of Chopper sweating over a new sheet of paper, looking back and forth, scribbling something down and then scratching it out, writing and rewriting. When he was finally done, eyes blinking from overuse, he had words lined up straight, letters looping into each other, instructions clearly numbered.

Sanji squinted at this one and felt really bad, but said, “I can’t read this.”

“Eh?” Chopper exclaimed and took his paper back in his hooves (which might have been part of the problem, but Sanji didn’t have the heart to say this), skimmed through his loopy, quick writing, writing that was usually found on prescriptions rather than recipes. He looked up.

“I…can’t read this either.”


	8. sanji doesn't know how to have fun

With their new crew member being a literal child, there had been a few adjustments lately. Mostly it was the more childish members doing their weird shit, but sometimes Vivi and Carue joined in as well and so there must be something rational behind it, if Vivi was doing it too. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why Vivi and Carue were huddled in his pantry.

“Close the door,” Vivi hissed, and then remembered, “please.”

Sanji opened his mouth, thought for a long while, and settled weakly on, “Could you pass the carrots, Vivi-chan?”

She did so with grace. Sanji closed the door. Kept his hand on the knob. Opened again. “Sorry, _why_ are you in here?”

“We’re hiding.” Vivi spoke softly, the urgency in her voice not muted. Carue nodded beside her, a feather to his beak.

“What? From who?” Sanji whispered back, quick and strained. Was there something happening on the ship? Had they been boarded? _Could_ they have been boarded? Was it pirates or marines? Or, wait, none of that would explain why Vivi was _hiding._

Vivi gave him an odd look and said, “We’re playing hide and seek.”

“You’re what?” Sanji said, and Vivi stared at his face like he was joking, only to widen her eyes when it was clear he wasn’t.

Before she could say anything else, Chopper slid in between Sanji’s legs and shouted, “Found you!” and in his surprise, Sanji almost stepped on him.

Luffy bounded up from behind and jumped up on Sanji’s back. “Man, you guys weren’t even trying. We found you right away!” he said, and then laughed right in Sanji’s ear. Carue quacked indignantly and started to flail at Luffy with his wings, which meant he was also flailing at Sanji, and now there were feathers all over the carrots and all in his hair and goddammit, he needed to sneeze.

“Luffy, you hid behind the mast.”

“Yeah?”

“I was counting at the mast.”

“Woulda worked if you didn’t turn around.”

“Boys, wait,” interrupted Vivi, and she calmed Carue down by simply pulling him back. “Sanji-san doesn’t know what hide and seek is!”

The look everybody gave was either pitying or incredulous, and he wasn’t sure which one he hated more. Until Luffy said, “What are you, stupid?” Then he came to a quick decision and Luffy got a dropkick to the floor.

* * *

Usopp very dramatically pushed the door gently open (Sanji would have kicked his teeth out if he slammed it) and strode in, nose shaking with rare affront. “I know I’m a good hider, but you didn’t have to stop looking for me!”

“Sanji doesn’t know what hide and seek is,” Luffy blurted out, and that was enough for Usopp to completely slam to a halt, both in stride and in his rant.

“I. What?”

“When we asked him what ‘game’ meant, he said,” and here Vivi did her best tobacco-filled throat impression, “’that’s meat you hunt or some shit, right?’”

Vivi stuttered over the curse, but it was enough to throw this situation into further surreality. Usopp fell into a chair. “Like. No games at all? You don’t know Tag?”

“No,” Sanji growled, curling into his hand as the interrogation started all over again.

“Red Rover? Musical Chairs? Jump rope? Floor is Lava?”

“Floor is _what?_ ”

“Duck Duck Goose?”

“That’s a bit of a reach,” Vivi cut in. “Duck Duck Goose is hardly a game.”

“Better than Catch.”

“I like Catch,” Chopper mumbled.

“Okay, now you’re just saying nouns, right?” Sanji said, beseechingly, looking at each face so panicked that Luffy burst out laughing again.

“He really doesn’t know,” Chopper said with the worry this was due. “Not even sports.”

“Not even soccer?”

Vivi and Carue shook their heads solemnly. Sanji looked absolutely mortified.

Usopp waved his hands around his head, like he was trying to grab Sanji’s lost childhood right out of the air. “Then...what did you do for fun?”

“I cooked,” said Sanji.

“He cooked,” everybody else droned in chorus, both drowning out and amplifying Sanji’s words, and Sanji blushed a little harder.

“I like cooking!” he insisted.

Usopp waved a hand. “But that’s _work._ What about fun? What did you do when you weren’t working?”

The longer Sanji thought, the more Usopp collapsed on the table under the weight of how _sad_ this was. “Sanji. Sanji, please tell me you’ve done _anything_ else besides cooking in your life.”

“I was living in a restaurant! What else was I supposed to do?!”

“Iunno, play with your dad?” Luffy said, and grinned triumphantly when Sanji blushed and shouted back, “ _He’s not my dad._ ”

“That’s a good point, what about the other cooks? They must’ve had fun, right? Didn’t they teach you any games?”

“ _Those_ bastards?” Sanji laughed instinctively, then looked serious. “Actually...”

Vivi perked up. “What?”

“Does anybody have a pocketknife? Wait, hang on...” With that worrying prologue, Sanji dug out a switchblade from his pocket and flipped it open. Spreading his hand out on the table, he aligned the knife over it, sang out an “ _Ohhhhhhh,_ ” and swung the knife downward.

Usopp screamed and Chopper fell over and Carue gurgled and Vivi grabbed his arm.

“That didn’t look fun,” Luffy said, frowning.

Sanji gently shook his wrist out of Vivi’s grasp. “Vivi-chan, that’s dangerous.”

Vivi stood up, spluttered for a moment, and threw her arms towards the knife with a non-regal sort of attitude. “ _You were going to stab your hand!”_

Sanji looked appalled. “No I wasn’t! It’s the game I was taught!”

“To _stab yourself?”_ Usopp leaned over and tried to grab for the knife as well, but Sanji scooted backwards and held it closer to himself.

“No! Look, it’ll make sense if you just let me do it!”

Vivi and Usopp stared at him for a long while before stiffly sitting back down. Chopper got back into his seat. Carue had already fainted and wasn’t getting up any time soon. Satisfied that nobody was going to grab for his knife again, Sanji scooted forward and set his hand on the table again.

The knife came down by his thumb, then in the space between his thumb and finger, and so on across his entire hand in a rhythm, all the while singing:

“ _Oh I have all my fingers, the knife goes chop chop chop, if I miss the spaces in between my fingers will come off!”_

Vivi caught Sanji’s wrist again. Usopp had his face sunk into his hands. Chopper was outright crying. Luffy laughed and said, “You sure had a weird childhood!”

Vivi, on the verge of tears, managed to wrest the knife from his hand and then set her hands on his shoulders and spun him towards her. “I’ll teach you some real games, Sanji-san! It’ll be okay! You’ll learn what fun is!”

“Yeah!” Chopper sobbed from the other side of the table

It was a nice sentiment, he thought as he learned arbitrary rules for an arbitrary win state, but Sanji couldn’t help but think that he’d rather be cooking dinner.


End file.
